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Just as little decisive effect can be ascribed to any considerable extent to American troops, which, in the first place, cannot be brought over through lack of tonnage.

Bernstorff, the German Ambassador at Washington, carried out his part of the plans to the letter. It was not until a few hours before the submarines were to strike, late in the afternoon of Jan. 31, 1917, that he presented the note of the German Government to the Secretary of State. He had that note in his possession twelve days before he presented it. He admits that it reached the German Embassy in Washington on January 19, the same day that Zimmermann, the German Foreign Minister, sent to Mexico his crafty but absurd proposal that Mexico form an alliance with Japan, and make war with the United States to recover the "lost territory" of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. That proposal also passed through the Washington embassy, in the Berlin diplomatic code, and was read by the Ambassador.

Before he presented the note declaring submarine warfare, Bernstorff had given the order that "the engines of all German ships lying in American harbors were to be destroyed." "I had already given instructions to this effect at the time of the Sussex crisis, and these instructions had now been repeated from Berlin," he says in his book. "As a matter of fact it was dangerous to allow of any delay, for on the evening of January 31, our ships were already seized by the American police. As far as I know, however, all of them without exception were made unfit for use before this occurred."